The groundbreaking invention of Dipl.-Phys. Giselher Grüner (General Manager, emtec Electronic GmbH) is on a good way to become an international standard measuring method for softness measurements of tissue. Groundbreaking because the new high-tech measuring device – emtec TSA Tissue Softness Analyzer – represents a new quality level of measurement technique in the tissue area. An optimal using of the TSA leads to significant savings of material, time and costs.

The TSA was developed and further optimized over a number of years by emtec Electronic GmbH in excellent cooperation with several big tissue producers. It mostly replaces the traditional hand panel, by which until now the softness of tissue had to be evaluated. This is connected with a very high time- and personnel expenditure on the one hand, on the other hand it leads to substantial mistakes and fragilities, which are caused by the subjectivity of human feeling. The TSA with its brand new measuring principles realizes a very extensive simulation of the human hand and with regards to the softness sensation also of the human brain. But because of the objective physical testing method of the TSA, the measuring results are exact, reproducible, reliable and free of subjective influences.

Besides this, with the new testing device it is possible to receive information regarding the product quality, which cannot be gathered by the human hand. These information lead to a tremendous increase in efficiency during the process optimization, product development, complaint management and quality assurance. Responsible for these possibilities are the three parameters softness, roughness/smoothness and stiffness, out of which the human sensation is mostly combined during touching of a tissue sample. These three parameters are captured separately with the TSA and can be combined to TSA HF hand feel numbers by the help of an extremely capable, but easy to handle PC software. The TSA HF numbers excellently correlate with the results of good hand panels. The single parameters offer completely new opportunities especially in the process optimization and lead to an increase in the efficiency in the tissue area in a not yet known way.